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Sunday, January 29, 2012

I wanted to use the ingredients that I prepared last weekend, and it was the best idea.

I made 2 kinds of pizzas. One had a tomato/mushroom/spinach sauce with mozzarella and pepperoni.

The other was something I threw together. I took 3 tablespoons of my homemade ranch dressing, about 2 cups of the BBQ sauce I made last weekend on top of that, 8 ounces of pepper jack cheese and chicken I prepared ahead.

It was seriously the best pizza I had ever eaten. The pizza crust was so delicious, and the combination of the sauce and toppings was perfect. I didn't even have to us extra spices.

Anyway, here's a picture (that honestly doesn't do it justice, but I barely had time to take a picture of it before I devoured the last slice.)

Monday, January 23, 2012

Well, first of all I slept in, then I went online. I found a site that pretty much showed all of the great deals online and in stores for the day. Someone did all the work for us, he should get an award!

Anyway, I was browsing the site and came across a great deal on magazine subscriptions. You might also be wondering to yourself "why would someone want to subscribe to a magazine when there is the Internet?!?" Well, to answer your question, because I like tangible things, so sue me! Also, these subscriptions were a steal!

With the Black Friday deal, and another deal I got from Groupon, I got 8 subscriptions for under 40 bucks. The only bad thing I can think of is I don't think I will be eligible for the great prices if I want to re-subscribe.

One of the magazines that I was most excited about is bon appetit. I got my first issue today, and the cover sucked me in (I haven't even taken the magazine out of the plastic wrapping yet!):

It's hard to see in the small picture, but that there is fried chicken, and they claim it's the BEST EVER.

As you may have read, I was ambitious yesterday. I had a whole list of things I wanted to make ahead for the week.

I wasn't as successful as I wanted to be, but pretty successful none the less.

I made hamburger buns, and froze half of them.
I made pizza dough and froze it.
I made chicken for quesadillas. I had so much of this I may use half in the enchiladas soon.
I made delicious BBQ sauce, half of which I froze.
I made and froze black bean burgers.
I made ranch dressing.
I made croutons :D
I also prepped the beef in the crock pot which was DELICIOUS!
During the course of the day I was snacking on some spinach artichoke dip (which I promise to blog about when I make it again.)

I took a couple of pictures of the BBQ sauce. Everything else was pretty typical, so the pictures wouldn't have been as exciting. This BBQ sauce is so beautiful and tasty!

It was so pretty simmering for hours...

Doesn't it look delicious? The recipe made a bunch, and it's nice and thick!

I promise to show you pictures of when I use it on chicken this week.

If anyone is interested in the recipes, I'll list them below.

Thanks for reading about my first attempt at this. I think I will have more fun (and time) next time around.

-April

Recipes (you will see most are from here because she's my food sister, I swear!):

Sunday, January 22, 2012

I have been reading a LOT of cooking blogs lately, and I have learned a lot of wonderful tips and recipes that have pretty much all been successes. I promise that when I make them again, I'll post about it.

One thing that I have been wanting to try is make ahead meals. Let's face it, I work a full time job, and when I get home I don't want to make a time consuming meal (I would rather make cupcakes, honestly!)

In order to get around this, I wanted to try to make a few meals on a weekend day and freeze them or have them ready in the fridge for sometime in the next couple of days.

Today is the day, I'm feeling ambitious and ready to go. So, at the moment this is what I am going to attempt to cook today. I know I'm posting at 6pm, but I've been working for a while now.

Directions:
To make the cupcakes, preheat the oven to 350˚ F. Line cupcake pans with paper liners. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. Stir to combine. In the bowl of an electric mixer combine the butter and sugar. Beat together on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in the eggs and egg yolks one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Blend in the vanilla. Combine the coconut milk and rum in a measuring cup. With the mixer on low speed, alternately add in the dry ingredients and the milk mixture mixing each addition just until incorporated, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.

Divide the batter between the cupcake liners. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 18-20 minutes. Let cool in the pan 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack set over foil or wax paper.

Meanwhile, make the rum glaze. Combine the coconut milk and sugar in a small saucepan. Heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves. Off the heat, add the rum. Poke each cupcake several times with a wooden skewer. Drizzle some of the glaze over the cupcakes. (If desired, brush with additional rum.)

To make the frosting, combine the pineapple, rum and lime juice in a blender or food processor. Pulse briefly so that the pineapple is finely chopped but not fully pureed. In the bowl of a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the heavy cream and confectioners’ sugar on medium-high speed until stiff peaks form. Gently fold in the pineapple mixture with a spatula. Pipe the pineapple whipped cream on top of the cupcakes as desired.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

I digress...if anyone knows me well (or not that well, for that matter) knows I LOVE Harry Potter. Come on, why not?!?!?!

Since Jessii and I decided to start a blog, I have been thinking of ideas. I want to have a lot going on here. I want to have recipes (of course), adventures, reviews of products (food related or not) and I want to have series posts.

So without further ado, I present to you all my first series:

I'm not 100% sure what the first recipe will be, but I'm sure it will be something sweet.